Prieuré de Marcevol

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The former priory of Marcevol ( French. : Priory Marcevol , katal. : Priorat de Marcevol ) is located in the impressive mountain scenery of the French Pyrenees foothills in the Pyrénées-Orientales in the old cultural landscape of the former to Catalonia belonging Roussillon .

Marcevol priory church with a broad - formerly six- or seven-arched bell gable

location

The church with its adjoining farm buildings is about eleven kilometers (driving distance) from the small village of Vinça in the municipality of Arboussols on a mountain plateau about 560 meters high north of the river Têt . In the southwest on the other side of the valley rises the 2785 m high Pic du Canigou , the "Holy Mountain" of the Catalans. The closest major city is Perpignan at a distance of about 45 kilometers to the east.

history

The Order of Knights of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem ( Ordre de Saint-Sépulcre ), which was founded in 1099 by Godfrey of Bouillon in Jerusalem and confirmed by Pope Paschal II in 1114 , received a donation of land from the Bishop of Elne in 1128 and a small chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary . Construction work on the current priory church, which was completed around 1160, began just one year later. In 1428 an earthquake hit the entire region; parts of the north bell gable and the north aisle of the church of Marcevol were probably also affected. At the end of the 15th century (1489) the order was dissolved by Pope Innocent VIII ; The Marcevol priory may have been handed over to the care of canons from Vinça , who restored the property and the church and ran it until the eve of the French Revolution .

In the 1970s, the church, which was no longer used for church services, and the adjoining farm buildings were taken over by the newly founded Association du Monastir de Marcevol to preserve and revitalize the buildings and made them usable for cultural purposes.

Priory church

Marcevol Priory Church - nave

architecture

The outside and inside rather simple and unadorned Romanesque church had formerly three - separated by thick brick pillars - ships , of which the middle with a barrel vault is covered and - the main - with no intervening transept apse supplies. The south aisle still has its original quarter-barrel vault and a slightly smaller apse . The north aisle, however, was converted into chapels after the earthquake destroyed it and no longer has an apse. The vault approaches are accentuated by surrounding cornices. The entire nave of the church has no windows; the room receives its sparse light only through the narrow - originally probably glassless - windows in the apse and in the west facade.

Furnishing

In the apse of the south aisle there are still sparse remains of a fresco with a depiction of Christ and Pantocrator surrounded by angels . The letters Α and Ω were affixed to both sides of the figure of Christ, framed by an almost diamond-shaped mandorla - today only the Α can be seen. It is unknown whether the other two apses or even parts of the nave were painted in the past. In the southwest corner of the right aisle there is an undecorated baptismal font made from a solid block of stone.

Marcevol Priory Church - facade

West facade

The west facade is divided into two levels by a horizontal bulge-shaped cornice, which forms an arch over the - simply recessed - aisle windows, which have a counterpart inside the church in the cornice below the vaults. The only jewelry that is otherwise very simple, i. H. Without figurative and ornamental decoration, designed facade are the multiple recessed portal walls of the main portal and an overlying window, both of which are designed with carefully hewn stones made of reddish-white marble from Villefranche-de-Conflent . The arches of the portal and the window are each covered by a jagged frieze. The semicircle of the tympanum consists of a - formerly perhaps painted - plate of white marble. The top of the facade is an exceptionally wide - formerly six- or seven-arched - bell gable ( Catalan espadanya ).

The two door leaves of the portal have been preserved in their original form and still have parts of their decorative wrought iron fittings with spiral motifs .

meaning

As early as 1840, the simple Romanesque church building of Marcevol was declared a monument historique . Along with the other important monasteries in the area, the name Marcevol also appears in the Catalan national epic Canigó (1886) by Jacint Verdaguer .

Surroundings

In the little hamlet of Marcevol, a little out of the way, there is the small church of Nostra Senyora de les Grades from the 11th century. About 2 km away there is a large stone grave from the megalithic era ( Dolmen de la Barraca ).

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Prieuré, Marcevol in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)

literature

Web links

Commons : Prieuré de Marcevol  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 42 ° 39 ′ 45 ″  N , 2 ° 30 ′ 0 ″  E